Research Spending Is Up

Colleges and universities spent $40.1 billion on research and development in the 2003 fiscal year, up 10.2 percent from the previous year and 100 percent from 1993.

The data[1] were released by the National Science Foundation, which regularly studies research spending in higher education.

A majority of the research funds came from Washington. Federal research and development spending in 2003 was $24.7 billion, up 13 percent from the previous year. Other significant sources of research support include state and local governments, businesses and institutional funds. Industry support for R&D in higher education fell by 1 percent in 2003, to $2.16 billion. Other categories all reported increases.

Nearly three-fourths of total research spending is for basic research, but applied research outpaced basic research slightly in the rate of increase, 11 percent to 10 percent.

Within the sciences and engineering, the top area of support, by far, is the medical sciences. The following table shows a breakdown, by disciplines.

R&D Expenditures by Higher Education in Science and Engineering, 2003

Field

All Spending

Federal Spending

Agricultural sciences

$2,555,000,000

$762,000,000

Biological sciences

$7,392,000,000

$5,017,000,000

Computer sciences

$1,304,000,000

$936,000,000

Environmental sciences

$2,188,000,000

$1,440,000,000

Mathematical sciences

$429,000,000

$295,000,000

Medical sciences

$12,787,000,000

$8,249,000,000

Physical sciences

$3,273,000,000

$2,353,000,000

Psychology

$769,000,000

$553,000,000

Social sciences

$1,661,000,000

$667,000,000

Engineering

$5,999,000,000

$3,608,000,000

Outside of the sciences, spending levels are much smaller and total $1.37 billion. Education is the top subject area, at $597 million, followed by business and management at $165 million, humanities at $135 million, and social work at $56 million.

The NSF study also provides rankings of the top universities in R&D expenditures, a category in which Johns Hopkins University is No. 1.

Top 20 Universities in R&D Science Expenditures, 2003

University and rank

All Spending

Federal Spending

1. Johns Hopkins U.

$1,244,000,000

$1,107,000,000

2. U. of California at Los Angeles

$849,000,000

$421,000,000

3. U. of Michigan (all campuses)

$780,000,000

$517,000,000

4. U. of Wisconsin at Madison

$721,000,000

$396,000,000

5. U. of Washington

$685,000,000

$566,000,000

6. U. of California at San Francisco

$671,000,000

$372,000,000

7. U. of California at San Diego

$647,000,000

$400,000,000

8. Stanford U.

$603,000,000

$484,000,000

9. U. of Pennsylvania

$565,000,000

$416,000,000

10. Cornell U. (all campuses)

$555,000,000

$321,000,000

11. Pennsylvania State U. (all campuses)

$533,000,000

$301,000,000

12. Duke U.

$520,000,000

$307,000,000

13. U. of Minnesota (all campuses)

$509,000,000

$293,000,000

14. U. of California at Berkeley

$507,000,000

$238,000,000

15. Ohio State U. (all campuses)

$496,000,000

$198,000,000

16. U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

$494,000,000

$266,000,000

17. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology

$486,000,000

$356,000,000

18. U. of California at Davis

$482,000,000

$208,000,000

19. Washington U. in St. Louis

$474,000,000

$357,000,000

20. Baylor College of Medicine

$462,000,000

$303,000,000

The universities in the rankings aren't entirely equivalent. Johns Hopkins leads the pack in large part because of the grants awarded to the Applied Physics Laboratory, which received $582 million in federal R&D support in 2003. These rankings also group together some university systems, but not others. Five University of California campuses appear on the top 20 list.

Federal spending on research and development remains highly concentrated, the data show. The top 20 institutions noted above account for 32 percent of federally sponsored R&D spending.